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Context: Screening ethnobotanical plants is a pre-requisite to evaluating their therapeutic potential and can lead to the isolation of new bioactive compounds., Objective: To determine the antibacterial and antifungal therapeutic potential of Justicia adhatoda., Design: The research team conducted an antimicrobial activity., Setting: The study was conducted in a bioscience lab at International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan., Intervention: Methanolic, ethanolic, and ethyl acetate crude extracts of Justicia adhatoda were prepared at concentrations of 1000, 500, and 100 µg/ml., Outcome Measures: The crude extracts were evaluated for in vitro antibacterial activity against Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Escherichia coli and for in vitro antifungal activity against Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger, Candida albicans, and Fusarium oxysporum, indicating different zones of inhibition., Results: The highest antibacterial activity was recorded in Justicia adhatoda-methanolic extract (16.33 ± 0.57 mm) and Justicia adhatoda-ethanolic extract (17 ± 1 mm) against Escherichia coli at 1000 μg/ml. Justicia adhatoda-ethyl acetate extract (13 ± 1 mm) showed a significant result as a zone of inhibition against Staphylococcus aureus at 1000 μg/ml. In the fungal strain culture, the highest antifungal activity was recorded in Justicia adhatoda-methanolic extract (15.66 ± 0.57 mm), Justicia adhatoda-ethanolic extract (14 ± 1 mm), and Justicia adhatoda-ethyl acetate extract (14.33 ± 1.15 mm) against the Aspergillus niger at 1000 μg/ml., Conclusion: The antimicrobial activities may be due to the strong occurrence of active compounds, i.e., saponins, tannins, alkaloids, steroids, phenols, and flavonoids. It has been concluded that Justicia adhatoda extracts are suitable candidates for the development of novel antibacterial compounds.

Background: The Public Health Empowerment Program (PHEP) is a 3-month training program for frontline public health staff to improve surveillance quality and strengthen the early warning system capacities. Studies evaluating the program and its impact on the health systems in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) are lacking. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the level of PHEP graduates' engagement in field epidemiology activities, assess their perceived skills and capacity to perform these activities and assess the extent to which PHEP helped the graduates to perform field epidemiology activities., Methods: A descriptive evaluation study was conducted based on levels 3 and 4 of Kirkpatrick's model for evaluating training programs to assess the change in graduates' behavior and the direct results of the program. Data were collected using two online surveys targeting PHEP graduates and programs' directors/ technical advisers., Results: A total of 162 PHEP graduates and 8 directors/ technical advisers participated in the study. The majority of PHEP graduates reported that they are often involved in activities such as responding to disease outbreaks effectively (87.7%) and monitoring surveillance data collection (75.3%). High proportions of PHEP graduates rated their skills as good in performing most of field epidemiology activities. The majority of graduates reported that the PHEP helped them much in conducting, reviewing, and monitoring surveillance data collection (92%), responding effectively to public health events and disease outbreaks (91.4%), and communicating information effectively with agency staff and with the local community (85.2%)., Conclusion: PHEP appears to be an effective program for improving the public health workforce's skills and practices in epidemiological competencies in the EMR. PHEP strengthened the engagement of the graduates in most field epidemiology activities, especially during COVID-19., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Alsoukhni, Al Nsour, Alsouri, Al Serouri, Hussain, Annam, Al Kohlani, Khan, Samy, ép Ben Alaya, Abu-Khader, Abbas and Khader.)

Silver oxide nanoparticles (AgO-NPs) antioxidant, anti-cancer, anti-microbial, and tissue repair properties. Gouty arthritis is the inflammation of tissues and joints caused by the deposition of monosodium urate crystals. In this experiment, we investigated the anti-hyperuricemic effectiveness of different concentrations of AgO-NPs in mice. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of administration of AgO-NPs in monosodium urate (MSU)-induced gouty mice for the very first time. Monosodium urate (MSU) crystals were administered intraperitoneal for gout induction, followed by 5, 10, and 20 µg/mL doses of AgO-NPs for 2 weeks. The positive control was provided with the commercially available drug allopurinol to compare the effects of AgO-NPs and allopurinol. The main purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of the nanoparticles in comparison with commercially available drugs. AgO-NPs have been shown to improve the condition of gouty arthritis by reducing significantly (P ˂ 0.001) increased levels of ALT, AST, and total bilirubin. The total protein estimation results showed significant improvement at concentration of 20 µg/mL of AgO-NPs. The lipid profile results showed that high concentration (20 µg/mL) of AgO-NPs decrease the lipid content significantly as compared to control. It was concluded from this study that the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antilipidemic properties of AgO-NPs may improve the hyperuricemic condition in gouty arthritis mice., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)